Starting in 1823... Answering Jeffrey Sachs' Question, "Why is Europe so Badly Run?????"

 Prof. Glenn Diesen asked Prof. Jeffrey Sachs to explain why Europe seem to be in such trouble, with unpopular leaders doing things the ordinary citizens in their countries don't seem to like. The answer starts in 1823 when US President Monroe said that all of the Americas belong to the US (well, actually Latin America, Canada, not so much).

For the next 75 years, the US strongly condemned colonialism while practicing neocolonialism.

An Imperial Power like 19th century Britain sent British troops to overthrow the government of a nation and take over. The resident Head of State was the British governor. All senior government officials were British. The ultimate Head of State was the British monarch. British soldiers were ready to shoot any and all rebels against British rule.

Spain had a policy that all Imperial Officers must be born in Spain. The existing officers tended to bring their wives along, and it was hard to arrange a trip back to Spain when the wife got pregnant. The Spanish officers considered themselves and their families Spanish citizens, but the children born outside Spain were not considered full citizens, just colonials with very limited rights.

So the US strongly encouraged these children of Spanish officers, with full Spanish blood, to revolt. The US fully supported them with money, weapons, and possibly with US military support. They got full power in their country, in spite of being a small minority, and, if they wanted continued US support, the US got everything of value (of course, the leadership got very well paid for their support, while the ordinary citizens got nothing).

After WWII, the US asked, 'Why only Latin America?' and set up neocolonial puppet governments in South Vietnam for 10 years, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and Africa (and for 20 years in Afghanistan), while keeping full neocolonial control over Latin America.

So when Sweden, which had been neutral for hundreds of years, were told to join NATO, the government didn't bother to ask the Swedes, who had no say in the matter, they just joined. The Finns, who had hated Russia for years also joined NATO, apparently having forgotten all of the disastrous losses every time they tried to fight Russia, figuring the US would at least enrich all the senior members of the Finnish government and protect them from the Russians. And the government in Switzerland, neutral for as long as anyone can remember, said the US had full control over all Russian assets in Swiss banks, and nothing was said, but the Swiss government must have been very well paid for their doing as they were told.

All Europe are basically a US neo-colony now, with the EU government making the decisions national leaders like Orban don't like but can't stop, and legally overruling elections that pick people who won't properly toe the US line.

So the European leaders with real control over their own countries have that control with US help, and always do whatever the US want, even if it is very bad for their country (but it's certainly very good for the leadership of the countries).

So the US neo-Empire now covers much of the globe, with a few obstreperous objections from places like the DPRK, Iran, Russia, and the PRC, but the US figure they can take them all out, preferably using the lives of proxies rather than American lives.